Internationalization of Manufacturing SMEs: Organizational Changes

In the last 15 years, several Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have rapidly internationalized operations in psychic distant countries with limited market knowledge, limited use of networks, and limited international experience of the entrepreneurs. The overall purpose of this thesis is to draw research attention to this internationalization phenomenon. I focus on the the impacts of the internationalization of operations on internal organizational elements in traditional SMEs. By analyzing five case firms from Italy, it emerges that traditional SMEs were forced to perform a relevant number of adaptations spread in time that affected different organizational elements. I argue that these adaptations accumulated into a continuous radical change for the company; it is a complicated process; nevertheless, the companies are potentially able to develop capabilities throughout the entire organization and to improve their international competitiveness.